One of the themes in this new book is the ancient tradition of the transhumance—walking animals to high pasture in the summer and back to low lands in winter. As it happens, transhumance—transumanza—is still widely practiced in the Apennines and the Italian Alps. Being in Rome would offer me the wonderful possibility of reseaching Italy’s transhumance and its attendant “shepherd’s roads.” My book The Goat Diaries draws inspiration from the pastoral poem, which also happens to have its birth in Italy: first with Theocrititus’s Sicilian shepherds and later with Virgil’s Eclogues. All these confluences greatly excite me. This year in Rome will give me time to complete The Goat Diaries and possibly start work on a series of novellas.